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Pfizer and subsidiary Pharmacia & Upjohn Company will pay $2.3 billion to the U.S. Justice Department for illegally promoting Bextra, an anti-inflammatory drug, and Geodon, Zyvox and Lyrica.

The whistleblowers who helped the government, five of them in all, will share $102 million from the settlement.

From the DOJ press release:

Bextra is an anti-inflammatory drug that Pfizer pulled from the market in 2005. Under the provisions of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, a company must specify the intended uses of a product in its new drug application to FDA. Once approved, the drug may not be marketed or promoted for so-called “off-label” uses – i.e., any use not specified in an application and approved by FDA. Pfizer promoted the sale of Bextra for several uses and dosages that the FDA specifically declined to approve due to safety concerns.

And most troubling, health care providers were paid kickbacks for writing prescriptions:

The civil settlement also resolves allegations that Pfizer paid kickbacks to health care providers to induce them to prescribe these, as well as other, drugs. The federal share of the civil settlement is $668,514,830 and the state Medicaid share of the civil settlement is $331,485,170. This is the largest civil fraud settlement in history against a pharmaceutical company.